This invention relates generally to the arbitration between results obtained by more than one method for matching observationally derived data to data from a number of databases, and, more particularly to arbitrating or deciding between address recognition methods for automatically recognizing addresses on items in an automated delivery system.
Due to the ever increasing volume of postal items and packages being delivered, postal services and delivery services are increasingly relying on optical character recognition to recognize the addresses of the items to be delivered. As address recognition performance levels improve, it becomes increasingly difficult to make significant advances in performance with a single address recognition system. Consequently, two or more independent address recognition systems are applied and a method is required to arbitrate competing results from these systems to select on a case by case basis the result most likely to be accurate.
Present methods and systems for arbitrating competing results from two or more independent address recognition systems utilize a small subset of result characteristics. Present methods and systems use the level of “trust” associated with the address recognition engine that produced the result as the primary arbitration factor. In addition present methods and systems also use a coarse indication of an alphanumerical “postal code” (for example, ZIP Code in the U.S. Postal Service) matching against a limited set of results when from one or two other systems.
A method and system for arbitrating competing results from address recognition systems that are extendable to an arbitrary number of address recognition systems and which utilize a number of the characteristics of the results from the address recognition systems are needed.